Cowan said a large number of structure fires his district responds to have marijuana growing inside.

Most times the fire is related to something going wrong with the grow equipment, but sometimes firefighters stumble across grow rooms while checking a burning house for people inside.

In an effort to get some sort of measurement of how many homes are growing, Cowan said the district added a marijuana category on paperwork classifying fires.

”Now we can keep an accurate tracking of these houses,” Cowan said.

Chapman agreed that the 215 grows are a problem in the city; not the fact that people can grow marijuana, but the unsafe growing conditions.

”It's been a problem for sometime,” Chapman said.

But he believes the solution is now in the right hands.

”The decision makers are talking about it,” Chapman said.

After two meetings on the subject, the Arcata City Council voted Oct. 17 to form a task force, dubbed a working group, to look into how the city can use land use codes to regulate the city's grow houses and possibly limit grow operations in residential neighborhoods to personal use.